


Agnâthu

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Fireside Tales [131]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the safety of his beloved golden princess and her children, he had sold his king, his prince, and the people of his father's kin to the schemes of a wizard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agnâthu

**Author's Note:**

> Grima Wormtongue, after being caught poisoning Théoden  
> Prompt: Curse  
> Alternate Universe: Agnu Ra Nutû

She is a golden beauty even with her face lined by grief and hair dimmed by the same, and Grima cannot help but wish she would look his way. That she does not only makes him bitterly curse the Rohirrim who had stolen away her heart many years before. Perhaps he never had a chance with a princess such as her, but he had always hoped he might.

Sometimes he even watches her children, the warrior son who no one could mistake as any but Éomund's get, and the golden daughter who grows more alike to her mother with every day. Watches them wishing that they could have been his own, even if not his by blood. That she might have looked his way after the golden Rider she'd wed had fallen to a Dunlending spear, but she had not.

Now, he leans gingerly against the wooden walls of his prison, and laughs at the fate that has been handed to him. Only now does she see him, when she thinks he covets her daughter as his bride, rather than as his own beloved child. What use has he for a girl young enough that she might have been his, had her mother ever noticed he but existed?

Perhaps he should never have made the bargain with Saruman that had brought him here, but Grima could never have refused the offer to have Théodwyn safe from the schemes of the wizard. Could not have turned away from the chance to protect the daughter who could not be his, or the son who will no doubt think him the sort of scum that Rohirrim have long thought the people Grima's mother came from.

"I am not of my mother's kin," he murmurs, though no one listens to whatever he might say in the dank dark of the cell that once had been a chicken hut. "I am of my father's kin, of Rohan."

For the safety of his beloved golden princess and her children, he had sold his king, his prince, and the people of his father's kin to the schemes of a wizard. Perhaps he is no better than his mother's kin, buying a chance at flight with the sacrifice of a woman little more than a girl. Perhaps he is no better than his father, who took the offered bride and looked away as a kin condemned fled into exile instead.

Perhaps he is nothing more than the viper she had called him when she discovered his plot in service of Saruman.

Grima laughs hoarsely again, his smile bloody and broken and remorseless. He would do it all again to see her safe. Would do anything to keep her safe, even if it costs him his life, at her hands or at Saruman's. His life is unimportant now, with the promise made, and the price done. Théoden will not survive to see another year, and Théodred rides to spend his life in an ambush that Saruman's orcs will undertake. Her discovery does nothing to change his bargain.

And his death will do nothing to dissolve it.

**Author's Note:**

> Grima is not aware that Éowyn is with Théodred, nor quite aware of just how far she will go to protect her cousin. She will not fall in the ambush he's aware of, and even if Théodred is injured, I don't think he will die there. Théoden, on the other hand, isn't likely to see the battle at Helm's Deep, and others will take up his crown and his role, and the defense of Rohan.
> 
> Title means "his vow". (Updated because of the new dictionary.)


End file.
